People use and have used alcohol to escape unpleasant realities and achieve a feeling of well being. These affects are generally realized by alcoholics and non-alcoholics alike unless they drink too much or for too long. When this happens the pleasurable effects are replaced by the emergence of increasingly painful feelings and memories. One can readily understand, therefore, why people drink but not why the alcoholic persists in drinking excessively when the result appears to be more painful than pleasurable. One hypothesis is that alcoholics forget the negative consequences of their drinking. During a six-week clinical research and treatment program in which patients may elect to drink or not drink specified amounts of alcohol at fixed intervals, we propose to investigate in a systematic manner general memory loss and, also, memory loss for feeling states when the event or state to be recalled occurs during both sober and intoxicated conditions and when recall is tested during sobriety and at different levels of intoxication. In this way, the relative contributions of general memory loss, denial of unpleasant experiences, and state dependent effects will be evaluated in the same individuals at varying levels and durations of drinking. Furthermore, relationships between the onset of memory loss, the change from an initial state of euphoria to one of anxiety, depression, hostility or general dysphoria, and the amount and duration of drinking will be investigated. When affective states are recalled incorrectly, we will also ascertain whether the error is in a positive or negative direction. The results of these analyses are relevant to theoretical issues about the effect of alcohol on different memory functions and may help explain why the alcoholic persists in expecting more pleasurable than painful effects from each succeeding drinking episode.